GM Souls: The game changer

For gaming addicts, it is the ultimate dream job - pop in a game, play for hours on end and get paid for it. If 21-year-old games tester GM Souls is to be believed, it's also a lot of hard work and a career choice that most people don't take very seriously

GM Souls (he will not reveal his real name for professional reasons and prefers to be known by this moniker) works as a game tester for Game Power 7, the first online gaming publisher in the region."Every day is a new adventure in this field. A typical workday starts with a visit to the virtual world to check on the players and see the atmosphere inside the game. Helping players is a daily task in this job apart from my main role, which is testing everything that is new," he says.

"Among so many perks, there are two aspects to this job that are my favorite: the smiles I see on players' faces after every successful event or on the launch of a new patch, and the fact that I'm always the first to see and experience the wonders of the virtual world." It can also be a pretty well-paid gig, with experienced game testers in the US earning up to $71,000 (Dh260,790) a year.

GM Souls' interest in gaming started in 2006 when he got hooked on to MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) - "a genre of role-playing online games in which a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world," he says.

In 2008, Game Power 7 launched Rappelz for Arabic gamers. For GM Souls it was a chance to face off against players from the region. The game paved the way for him to become a tester at Game Power 7.

So what skills do you need to play games all day and get paid for it? GM Souls counts them off: "Sharp observation skills and the ability to detect bugs - no matter how small the problems are, they could turn to disasters. Above all, a heart for gaming is essential for success in this job."

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